


The Last of Them

by love2imagine



Category: White Collar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 16:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7626382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little story, comments on some oddities. Thanks to Ditsyjo for discussion, mostly polite(! :D ) and ideas.</p><p>Set long after the end of S6. Difference here is that Peter and El never had a child so, since there was a chance that Peter would leave El and chase him, Neal never got the clues to Peter letting him know that he had survived.</p><p>As always, White Collar and it's fabulous characters do not belong to be, but to Jeff Eastin or whoever bought the rights! - Story mine, mistakes mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last of Them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ditsyjo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ditsyjo/gifts).



 

 

 

Peter stood at the window looking out onto the spring fields. On most days, he felt a certain contentment. He liked it here, it reminded him of the happy days of his childhood. Cool, wet winters, dry warm summers, sometimes too hot and too dry, but not for extended periods. He’d left all that many years ago and had gone on to live a good and satisfying life in the main. When he finally could, when all connections would have gone, when there had been nothing left for him elsewhere, he had searched this place out. He’d bought a few acres abutting on government forestry land, fenced it well and made himself a home. A pleasant place to relax, putter around the house, fix things, paint things, and try not to look back.

 

He managed, most days.

 

Other days he was surrounded by ghosts. He wished, on those days, he’d stayed a Catholic and had access to a well-trained exorcism-practising priest, though they were less common than in decades past. If he could just forget…if he could just truly want to.

 

The worst was when he woke, as he had that very morning, not remembering that El was no longer with him. It was a little more than five years since she had passed from a short illness. She had been – not brave, that was what people said, but really, she was _interested,_ interested in what came after. Her only regret, she told him, was leaving him, not being able to go with him on this most exciting journey and she believed it would be for a short while and they’d be together again. He’d pretended to believe her. They had been each the other’s mainstay for so many years! He hoped with all his being that it was true. If he could sleep, and sleep and sleep, and the dreams of all those ghosts could become real, that would be heaven, indeed.

 

On mornings like this, he would wake slowly from a lovely dream, planning in his head what he would do with El today…go on a picnic? Help her with her pottery studio she was setting up? Make love in the spring dawn?...he’d reached across, eyes still closed and felt that cool, plump pillow, and the tearing grief had struck him as keenly as if the loss had just happened. He had debated getting rid of their bed, but couldn’t bring himself to do so. It was totally irrational, but her dear body had slept on that bed, they had enjoyed each other and deepened their love. Selling it was akin to selling his memories of her, his love for her, saying she wasn’t important to him any more. The bed stayed.

 

The fierce anguish sparked by such awakenings didn’t linger for the whole day any more, but with El came other phantoms, not always the same ones each time.  Neal always came.

 

Peter, shortening his focus so that he could see his own reflection in the window since the light was on before him on the desk, saw the changes. Because of all his physical activity he was still in good shape, though his face was jowlier.There was more silver than brown in his hair now, and the crowsfeet had deepened round his eyes. El had loved – or said she loved – the sexy grey at his temples.

 

The advantage of being dead was that Neal, El, Hughes and the rest never aged. El’s hair was nut brown and shiny, her skin smooth as a child’s. Neal was always the insanely handsome man with the brilliant, sparkling, intense eyes and white grin. Hughes was – well, Hughes had been that acute, silver-haired, grouchy stork of a man with a carefully hidden soft heart from the time Peter had first met him!

 

Diana came also, now and then. He had lost touch with her, didn’t bother to look her up, and for all he knew she was hale and healthy, but she had been lost to him since…well, to be honest, since before Neal had been killed. She had come to feel he’d been less than supportive of Neal, less than he could have been. Perhaps if he’d gone to bat for Neal, fought the FBI hierarchy, and Neal had been released…. He found out later that Diana had herself done so, jeopardising her future with the FBI, and to hell with them! Diana had come to love and respect Neal. She had seen his acceptance of the situation as weakness or worse: self-interest.

 

So she had transferred out of White Collar as soon as she could and her career had continued to sky-rocket despite her out-spokenness. She was an outstanding agent.

They seldom made contact after that. El had done so while she was alive, telling him now and then about how well Theo was doing. Since her death there had been a couple of stilted, short and unsatisfactory phone conversations.

 

Jones, too, had left many years before he himself had retired, but he had never been as close to Jones, even though Jones had been firmly on his side through everything.

 

Perhaps because of that.

 

The shades of his early childhood were so faded now that they had ceased to bother him. It was with an effort that he dragged them out of dusty boxes buried deep in the cobweb-swathed attic of his mind.

 

He turned from the window, clicked off the small lamp and took his coffee to the chair near the still-warm embers of the previous night’s fire. It now gave him a perverse satisfaction to allow himself to recall his first home, his father and mother and two brothers. For years, scores of years, he disciplined himself to never think of them. He smiled a little. First it had been the only way to protect his sanity, but also Neal and Diana each had a strongly developed intuition, could sometimes seem to read his mind. El has been so intelligent, aware of subtle nuances. No, it wouldn’t do to have any old memories floating around in his head!

 

Near the end, he had told El, who had never questioned him about his past once he told her he wanted to forget it, though, with her enquiring, practical mind, he knew she must have wanted to know. She must have told that father of hers to leave the subject alone because, nosy and pushy as he was, he’d never asked, either.

 

He had been distraught to learn that she had suspected that one of the reasons he didn’t want children was that there was – well, the old term would have been ‘bad blood’ in his family. He hadn’t worried about that, it simply hadn’t occurred to him. The babies never came; they were both busy and fulfilled, and very happy with each other. It was hard enough for him to find time to be a good husband to her, let alone a caring father to a family, so he had been quite content to remain a couple. El had assured him that she had always been, too.

 

Today, just for a change, June – yes, that was it, June! – joined him in the other chair as he drank his coffee and made a face at him for the lack of quality thereof before fading away. Neal lifted his eyes and said, “I think it’s some sort of Italian roast, Peter. _Not_ yours! _June’s!”_ , and Peter smiled and sipped as he returned to his solitude. Somehow coffee had figured quite largely in their time together, especially at first.

 

One day, when Neal’s ghost was unrelentingly with him, he’d take the time and tell Neal – and himself – the story of how Peter Burke had come into being. He almost _had_ told Neal, the time they sat outside the Cave, and Neal had admitted to being in witness protection. Peter had bitten his tongue to stop himself sharing in return, as any friend would naturally have done.

 

Peter shook his head a little, finishing the dregs of the coffee. It had surprised him that Neal had never insisted on knowing. Had never even asked El. Had never got Mozzie to try and find out. Or perhaps he had, the past was hidden very well, and El could have just told him to leave the subject alone and he would have. Neal was like that.

 

In the end, Peter had known a great deal about Neal, and even more about Mozzie, the two secretive criminals, one as paranoid as anyone Peter had ever met! They knew almost nothing about him. Perhaps, since he was The Man and all, Mozzie hadn’t cared!

 

Peter had marvelled that Neal had memorised the birthdays and anniversaries of the decent guards at Sing Sing, for heaven’s sake! He added people from their cases: the girl with the portrait, (perhaps because he hadn’t been able to keep the picture for her but had been forced to give it back to the museum), the guy whose bonds he forged and whose daughter he _had_ been able to return to him, the family whose house they saved… Through all the years with the FBI he sent cards and sometimes little gifts to them!  It must have been very useful if planning a con, but it wasn’t a con. Neal truly loved people, all their eccentricities and the details of their lives and went out of his way to connect with them, make them feel good about themselves. Peter had enjoyed watching him do it, interacting with all sorts of people. Almost every case showed that Neal appreciated quality things, that he had a flexible idea of personal property, but he was primarily a caring human being. It was what made Peter love him.

 

_Made everyone love him, pretty much._

 

Yet to Peter’s ongoing puzzlement, Neal had never pried into Peter’s past beyond the purely superficial chats they shared…or had done it so subtly that Peter had not noticed the information extraction procedure. Peter found that he preferred that alternative explanation. Otherwise, he felt almost insulted!

 

He made himself some toast, and left the little house with the windows slightly open to let the smoke waft away. He pulled on his boots: parts of the woods and the lower part of the yard were still very muddy, and the liver-and-white spaniel leapt up from the mat joyfully. She was a stray. He’d found her snuffling around his front gate one morning less than a fortnight ago, and no-one had claimed her though she wore a good collar with the name ‘Maddie’ burnt onto it. He had told the local shelter he’d keep her unless her owner was found. It was nice to have a dog again. He pondered getting a second, larger one, to help her keep the raccoons and coyotes away. The properly done fence stopped the coyotes coming in – and Maddie going out alone! – but a big German Shepherd or similar dog would let the wildlife know this was his well-defended property! Maddie couldn’t take on a raccoon, or a possum on her own. She just wasn’t the right type of dog.

 

Snuggling a little into the aged jacket he’d bought at the animal shelter’s charity shop, he made his way round the fence. It was a daily ritual. He knew he had to do some mending of the little chicken run, he had ordered four point-of-lay Iso Browns and they’d be here in a couple of weeks.

 

“You’ll just have to be good, Maddie, and learn not to scare them. They’re going to wander the yard during the day, but we always had dogs and chickens with no trouble.”

 

He went into the shed and put together the tools he’d need, and some pieces of left over lumber, and made sure the paint hadn’t dried in the can. He wished there was someone he could call, talk to, to rid himself of the lingering sadness his early dreams had caused, but there you are…when you don’t share, when you keep yourself from making friends, it becomes very hard to change those habits, even when the cause has long since faded away! So for the foreseeable future, Maddie was going to have to do!

 

“This afternoon, we’ll go through the gate into the forest, Maddie, and take that left-hand fork up the hill and see where it leads, shall we? Yes, yes, the pond was a great deal of fun, but I do not feel like bathing you again, okay?”

 

She ran around sniffing in the dark corners of the shed, and he smiled down at her. She was likely to get just as muddy and messy going up the hill as down, her feathers were already wet from the grass, but it was nice to have her company.

 

 

He sat down to a lunch bowl of cereal and warm milk and, to try and drive away the more recent ghosts – and they weren’t all that recent – he indulged himself in remembering as best he could his family: The good old days.

 

The door had been a strange colour of blue. Funny what had remained with him. It had been a small house, but when you’re a child, it doesn’t matter. There were two trees in the back – huge redwoods to little …Timmy. He didn’t think of himself as Tim any more, he’d been Peter for so long. Tim was someone else, like watching a movie shot through the eyes of a child. It wasn’t only the years that divided them, it was the trauma and then his deliberate cutting away of everything to do with Timmy.

 

He, Rob and Roddy had played in the yard, and on the street – street hockey, he remembered. He was the youngest, and they were as impatient and irritated by his presence as most older brothers. His mother and father were ordinary, nice people. There was always sufficient, healthy food and comfortable clothing, at least in his memories. He played and went to school and had friends. He swam and played tennis, and football when he grew older. Which is why he’d told people he’d played baseball, making up an injury so they never asked him to take part in inter-division matches.

 

He was happy in school, he believed, most of the time. When he looked back, it had indeed been a normal, happy childhood. He’d broken his arm, Roddy had been stung by wasps so badly he had swollen up and little Timmy had thought he was a monster and gone running screaming into the road! – _Me. I’m Timmy._

 

But he wasn’t, of course. He’d ceased to be Timmy an aeon ago! He was just sixteen when he came home to find his mother and father yelling at his brothers. He didn’t know what was going on and it was scary. They hadn’t been a yelling family. Roddy and Rob were yelling back and then his mother saw him and told him to go to his room, but he just stood there as though rooted, clutching his books under his arm.

 

“We only wanted to make some money, that’s all!” Roddy was shouting, and his father hit him. Now they’d always known that spanking was a real threat when they were little, but this was a furious backhanded whack that knocked Roddy backwards. There was a sudden silence.

 

“You have one option – you come with us to the police right now!” his father then said, breathing heavily.

 

“No!” Rob said, horrified. “Dad – you don’t know – we’d be - !”

 

“Or leave this house right now!” his father had said, loudly. “Those are your choices. I will not have your immoral decisions put your mother and brother at risk!”

 

“B-but we can’t – you don’t know - ”

 

“Those are your choices!” his father had reiterated. “I’ll come with you to the station. You’re young, you made a mistake…it’s that simple.”

 

It had taken a while for Tim, confused, angry, frightened at the change in his family, to realise that his brothers had started selling dope and stolen goods for extra cash. He was horrified! That wasn’t the kind of thing their family did! That was for desperate criminal types! Not his brothers!

 

Peter shuddered. The next bit was like a horror movie that he’d watched, but the feelings were so bleak that he could only remember a sign-post here and another there, unconnected, the periods between impenetrable dark fog. He wished he could stop the film, but having started it rolled on relentlessly, ruthlessly.

He rose and went out into the garden, but the memories kept coming.

His brothers just weren’t there any more. His mother cried a lot. His dad and mom quarrelled every day. They pretty much ignored him, and he felt like a boat that is experiencing high seas for the first time, the anchor line is broken and the timbers are creaking.

 

It took about two months, he believed, for it to become unbearable: the loss of his brothers, the loss of his family! – if he could just get them to come back, everything would go back to normal. He had prayed and lit candles and had gone to confession often, in the hopes of appeasing what seemed to him a capricious God – his parents, especially his mother, was devoted, and worked in the church whenever she found the time, and they gave money they could ill afford. If God couldn’t fix this in two months, after years of visiting Him every Sunday, then perhaps He expected His children to do something.

 

So one day after school he went searching for Rob and Roddy. After a few days of looking, he saw them walking together with three men as the evening sky darkened, and followed, intent only on speaking to them. He hurried a little as they walked down one street and then another, not really noticing that the area was run-down, old empty warehouses with their windows broken, trash littering the streets. They turned into an alley and went into a building, closing the door after them. He ran after them, worried that he would lose them, opened the door and called – and all hell broke loose.

 

Someone yelled, “Police! Let me see your hands!”

 

One of the men – a much older, ugly man – turned and saw Tim, and yelled, “We’re trapped!” and shot at him – and Roddy threw himself into the way and fell as the man’s gun blasted. Tim ducked out instinctively as many more shots rang out, and then it became a terrifying blur of noise and dust, movement and fear. The sick, sharp, metallic smell of fear and blood and gunpowder.

 

Roddy died there at the scene, and Rob a while later in hospital. Tim was bruised and roughed up by the police who thought at first that he was part of the criminal group. He was terrified, shoved into a cell with two of the harsh-faced men – and others – but one older cop saw what was happening and took him to an interrogation room and gave him some sweet tea. He’d puked in the waste bin as soon as he was alone.

 

Peter shrugged a little. He was almost sure he was remembering incorrectly. He’d gone over the scene so many times: first to the police, his parents and then to himself. The memories became confused. Then he’d tried everything he could to forget. His folks never spoke to him again. They must have done so, but he had no recall of it whatsoever. He didn’t remember much of the funerals except a general grief, emptiness and despair, black cloth and darkness and the priest saying things that seemed insane and ludicrous all at the same time.

 

Three of the criminals had been shot, but recovered. The three he’d seen and the five they were meeting were all charged. God did not send a lightening bolt to even the score. It was at that time that Peter lost his faith.

 

Months passed, but it seemed soon afterwards, seeing that his parents were almost unaware of him in their intimately entwined grief that even he could perceive was beginning to tear them apart, and sensing that they blamed him for his brothers being dead (and perhaps they were correct), he packed a bag and left, moving as far away as he could. Thinking about it with his adult mind, he had probably left some unanswered questions with the local police, but he really couldn’t have helped in the court case.

 

After a year of working and saving, he changed his name through the courts, picking one out of the phone book. It was a hassle, but he didn’t feel like Tim anymore. He didn’t want to feel like Tim anymore. Tim had devastated his family, and the guilt and sadness were too hard to bear.

 

Bored with the menial jobs, he spent time in libraries and, as he always had, he picked up information easily. And since God wasn’t doing anything to stop the bad guys, he conceived an idea to do something about them himself, and set a plan in motion, working hard to make it happen. He came to realise that the blame hadn’t been all his. The police had messed up badly, too, not setting a man watching the back entrance. Perhaps they didn’t know it was there. Somehow, it didn’t make him feel much better. But the training helped him feel in control, helped do away with the fear of the noise and confusion of death he’d experienced. He grew up. He moved on. At least some parts of him did.

 

Thinking over it all, calmly, he smiled a little, as Maddie started to bark and run around, nose down like a vacuum cleaner, probably picking up the scent of a rabbit.

 

_Goofy dog!_

_I wish I’d told Neal. I told him lies. Not many, but they were lies. I’m more like him than he thought. Than_ I _thought! I reacted precipitously, in the heat of the moment. I shouldn’t have left. That wasn’t fair to my folks. I was an untried kid, in shock, and no-one explained._

He could justify his actions, but the deep-seated guilt, as much part of him as his brown eyes, would probably always be there. Not very intrusive unless provoked, but there.

 

 A few days after this he finished fixing the henhouse, making it as predator-proof as possible. Coyotes would have to dig deep under the well-installed yard fencing, there was easier prey in the forest, but rats, raccoons and possums showed surprising craft when it came to plump poultry!

 

 _I_ must _get another dog. Maddie is cute, alert, but not particularly fierce! I’ll go and ask Julie to look out for the right one for me. She’ll be pleased._

He stretched, sniffing the breeze, enjoying the sense of accomplishment of a job well done. He enjoyed using his hands. He watched as Maddie rushed off round the house.

 

 _Rabbits again…and now listen to her! Just barking, barking as though her best friend has come to visit!_  

 

Peter shook his head and walked round the house after his dog, and broke his stride a little, seeing that there was indeed a man standing by the closed gate. Maddie was jumping up and down just inside it, barking, her long ears flapping in time to her yelps.

 

“Maddie!” Peter called. He wondered who this could be…

 

This was a small community. Even though his house was somewhat out-of-the-way, private and hard to see from the road, the neighbours were friendly, and nosey to some degree. They wanted to get to know new-comers. They had come bearing pies and casseroles and advice. He had been polite, had returned the washed pie and casserole dishes once he had (usually) enjoyed the contents, and had not spoken much to anyone. He had not shared his life story, nor, indeed, asked them anything about themselves. He nodded politely to people on the street, and the most he had shared with anyone had been the local, privately-run animal shelter, the vet and the store that carried pet supplies. And that had all been about Maddie! Julia from the shelter, and Robins, the vet, garnered the vital personal tid-bit that he had owned dogs before!

 

After about three weeks even the most sociable …or inquisitive! …person (Mrs Gumphries) had given up on him and stigmatised him as closed-mouthed, with the intonation that her friends knew: _something suspicious about **that** one!_

 

Most people shrugged their shoulders. They suspected, rightly of course, that he had suffered a loss, retired and come here to nurse his wounds and regain his balance, not to answer questions. There were no further advances with invitations for a bowling league or a fishing competition. No-one showed up at his gate any more with baked goods.

 

_So who’s this?_

 

The man was wearing a coat and a hat and Peter didn’t seem to recognise him as one of the local populace. Peter also winced a little: probably his eyesight wasn’t quite what it was in his Quantico days!

 

Then he saw the tab-collar and his steps slowed a little. The church had been empty when he arrived. He only knew that because he saw, from the notice-board outside, that several ministers had been ‘auditioned’ to fill the vacant post. It obviously wasn’t RC, it seemed that this was an interdenominational church. Apart from passing glances, Peter had ignored even the building. In his youth, a priest may have called to invite ( _Lean on!_ )  a new member of the village to become a member of his congregation, but he thought this practice had faded away as less and less people attended any religious institution. Perhaps in these small, rural areas, the old ways still applied.

 

_Now, Maddie, how do we get rid of him in the shortest possible time without resorting to unnecessary rudeness that may alienate the villagers? It would help if you sounded less welcoming, dummy! Another reason to get a big, fierce dog!_

Maddie, having barked a few more times, showed her friendly spaniel nature and raced in small circles by the gate. The man made encouraging noises, looking down at her.

 

_Might as well get this over with!_

 Peter quickly strode over and unlatched the gate, saying, “Sorry about her, she’s…” The hat had tilted up from looking down at Maddie, and he had met the man’s eyes. “ _Mozzie!”_

 “Suit.” Mozzie smiled a little. “Well, ex-Suit. Retired Suit.”

 

“What are you – how - ?”

 

“Mind if I come in for a little while?”

 

“Come in, come in!” Peter let him in the gate, herding the excited Maddie, and Mozzie leaned down and petted the delighted dog. Peter led the way into the house, and Mozzie looked around approvingly. He knew how to make himself comfortable anywhere, and appreciated that Peter had done the same. There was a silence as Peter struggled to come to grips with his emotions. His initial reaction had been pleasure. He hadn’t seen Mozzie since…since about the time Neal had been killed. Mozzie had been an irritation, a conspiracy-crazy Jiminy-cricket at times, but had also helped Peter and El, and had loved Neal.

 

_But do I want to remember? No, I want to forget. It’s hard enough without height-challenged criminals appearing in the disguise of priests – ministers – whatever!_

He realised that he was just standing, and Mozzie was watching him, that same ‘I know your darkest secrets’ look Mozzie sometimes got back when _he_ was trying to catch _them_ doing something they shouldn’t be doing!

 

“Sit, sit!” he said, making himself smile. “Coffee?”

 

“Coffee will do, thanks, Peter.”

 

“I have beer, but I’m afraid no wine.”

 

Mozzie sat on the couch and Peter went to get mugs and regain his composure.

 

When they had gone through the milk-and-sugar ritual, and were seated and settled, Peter asked, “Why are you here? And the collar?”

 

“In towns, it can invite violence, you know,” Mozzie said. “Which even I find very sad. But out here, people are gently respectful and don’t ask many questions, which is a good thing. And I am ordained, if you remember.”

 

Peter put his mug down carefully. He recalled that night in Neal’s loft…

 

“I came back rather recently,” Mozzie said, choosing his words carefully, “after…wrapping up some things. I spoke to Diana and she told me about Elizabeth. I wanted to come and tell you how sorry I am. She was a lovely, intelligent woman.”

 

“Thank you, Mozzie,” Peter said, simply. “We shared a loss before.”

 

Mozzie busied himself with his mug. Then he nodded. “Yes.”

 

“You’ve been in Europe?” Peter asked, feeling a little like an idiot at a cocktail party, speaking inanities.

 

Mozzie nodded. “Most recently. I came back - ” Mozzie seemed to cut his sentence short. Then he went on, “June died, also.”

 

“June! Recently?”

 

“Yep. About seven months ago. She had a good, long life, and was very healthy for most of her years. But finally…”

 

“I was worried that…that when Neal was killed, she would take the shock so hard that…” _Funny, how painful it is to talk about, even now._

Mozzie looked away and said, softly, “Yes.” Then he shook himself a little and said, “She was a formidable lady. We …loved her. I’ll miss her.”

 

“One of a kind.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

There was an awkward pause, then Peter smiled a little and asked, “I assume you do not want me to ask what you’ve been doing, or what you plan to do now that you are home?”

 

Mozzie shrugged as though it was of no concern to him, then he frowned a little. “I was thinking of…”

 

“Of…?” Peter prompted.

 

“Oh, I don’t know. Silly.”

 

Peter looked hard at him. Mozzie was looking tired, but otherwise the years seemed to have been kind. He hardly looked older than he had when they last met. Which was a good long time ago, now. But the man who was always thinking, planning, working on theories, always very aware, seemed now to have loosened the strings. He seemed …Peter had to think about it…lacking that drive, that intensity, that purpose.

 

“You are okay?” he asked. “Well? Um – okay for money?”

 

The man opposite looked up quickly, and smiled a tiny smile, and there was Mozzie, again. “Yeah, Peter, I’m well, and okay for funds.”

 

Peter felt the matter needed pursuing. There was some fundamental difference here that hadn’t been explained. He hadn’t seen the man in all this time, and now he shows up? Why?

 

“You just came to say you were sorry to hear about El?”

 

“Yeah. We’ve both…lost people, Peter. I have other friends, you know, people I trust as much as I trust anybody, but…”

 

“But no-one came close to Neal, for you,” Peter said it straight out. “And no-one came close to Neal and El for me.”

 

Mozzie nodded, turning his mug round and round in his fingers. At last he said, “That puts it very well.”

 

“Would you like to stay for dinner?”

 

Mozzie smiled again, that small, sad smile. “I’d like that.”

 

“I have a spare bedroom, we can make up the bed so you don’t have to leave and find somewhere to stay…”

 

“Oh, I have a place to stay.”

 

“You do?”

 

“Yeah. The parsonage.”

 

_He hasn’t changed that much!_

“You’re staying at the parsonage. Please tell me you aren’t…!”

 

“They need some spiritual guidance, someone to listen, Peter. I am ordained!”

 

“How did you con your way – no, no, don’t tell me, I really don’t want to know.” Peter wondered what sort of advice the lifetime criminal would impart to these poor unsuspecting folks!

 

“They aren’t an incorporated church. I think they like it that I have independent means and don’t want a large stipend.”

 

“Independent means.”

 

“Yes. June left me some money.”

 

“Mmm-hmm?”

 

They both smiled a little into their coffee, and Peter said, suddenly, “How did you find me? I know you’re sneaky, but no-one knows. My name isn’t on the gate, I have phoned Diana now and then, but she doesn’t know where I’m living, I - ”

 

Mozzie shrugged. “Does it matter?”

 

“Yeah, it does! How did you…” Peter very deliberately stopped talking. He knew he was sounding like an interrogator, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to spend some time with Mozzie. It felt nice. _I’m lonely. Boy, I’m lonely – Mozzie, of all people!_

 

“Okay, then,” Mozzie sighed. “When Neal took the deal with you, way back, I did a little digging.”

 

“On me.”

 

“Yeah. Of course! You could have been a homicidal maniac for all he knew – or cared. Neal wasn’t very careful, emotionally.” He sighed, then went on, “I found out some things. Where you came from, originally. Who you were.”

 

Peter heard weird, discordant music in his brain, a few repeating notes, and finally identified it… _You have now entered the Twilight Zone…_

 “No-one knew – El didn’t know until – I told her only a while before she died. How could you possibly have - !”

 

“I never told anyone.” Mozzie seemed to think that made it okay.

 

“Not even Neal?”

 

“No, definitely not Neal. He had his own problems, and the last thing I wanted was for him to feel more sympathy for you!”

 

“Well,” Peter sighed, “too late now. Thank you, for never sharing that.”

 

“No point. I would have shared if you had been a homicidal maniac, mind you.”

 

“I’ll bet.

         “But that doesn’t explain…”

 

“Well, I thought it was likely you’d come back…somewhere close, but perhaps not too close. We’re territorial animals, on the whole. It took a while, but I have plenty of time. I asked around, found that you – someone who fitted your description - had moved close to this town.”

 

“And you followed me?”

 

“I found the town.” Mozzie tilted his head a little and looked at Peter fondly. “It’s been a long time, Suit. We spent some turbulent years together. Well, not together, exactly, but ….”

 

“Yeah. We made a surprisingly good team.”

 

“Burke’s Seven, you mean?”

 

Peter smiled broadly. “Absolutely! The participants were sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other…but we got things done, got rid of some very bad people. And I know I could trust you and Neal in an emergency. That’s rare. I never really told him.” Peter’s smile faded.

 

“He knew, Peter. Neal was - well, if you hadn’t been tied to the FBI, with all the mess they made of his life, I believe you two could have made a great team.”

 

“We did. Just not all the time. So many times I wish things could have been different.”

 

“Actions predicated on subconscious programmes caused by past suffering,” Mozzie nodded. “Sad, but not surprising. Curse of Mankind, it seems.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Peter saw Mozzie shake himself mentally. “Do you play chess?”

 

“Badly,” Peter shrugged, “and slowly. Drive you mad, I’m afraid!”

 

“I suggested it because it’s harder to cheat at chess. Can’t think you’d want to play poker, any card game, with me!”

 

“Ah. _That_ would keep you entertained, would it?”

 

“Not _trying_ to cheat. Trying _not_ to.” Mozzie grinned.

 

“Did you and Neal try and cheat each other?” Peter demanded.

 

“All the time! Got to keep your edge! Important to have a brilliant partner as a whetstone.

         “Sometimes we just played, though, to hone our chess skills!”

 

“I have a scrabble set. It was here in the house. But I don’t own a chess set.”

 

“I have one. The one Neal learned on.”

 

“That would be nice. Perhaps you can teach me, if you’re going to stay around long enough…and it probably will be a long process. How long are you going to be ministering to the spiritual needs of the locals?”

 

“Depends on whether you’d like me to stick around.”

 

“I think I’d like that. The museum and art gallery here are not worth your while, mind you!”

 

“I wasn’t thinking of adding to my funds. Might donate some pieces, come to think of it.”

 

“I want to be there to see that! I want to see you explain how you are in possession of the ‘Entrance of the Masked Dancers’!”

 

“Oh, nothing _like_ so pretentious, Peter!”

 

Peter cocked his head a little. “So many things I’d like you to tell me. I have a feeling that you sold that and stole it back, right under my nose. I can’t prove it, but hypothetically…?”

 

“That would have been some trick, wouldn’t it? Me right across town at a convention of philatelists and Neal locked up in a windowless room?”

 

“I wouldn’t put it past him! I wondered if he could walk through walls, some of the stuff he pulled.”

 

Mozzie shrugged one shoulder and asked, “What challenge would there be in that?”

 

“Yes, I know, he often had very efficient and sometimes completely invisible back-up, didn’t he?”

 

“Did he?”

 

Peter sat back and smiled. “I’ve missed you, Mozzie.”

 

“I think we miss what was, Peter. And yes, all our friends, all the possible futures,” the younger man said. Then, with some difficulty, “And there are going to be some secrets I must keep, Peter. Some are not mine to share. Some are better if you do not ever know.”

 

Peter was a little surprised that the bantering tone was suddenly absent from Mozzie’s voice. He sounded sad. Mozzie must still miss Neal so much – the only man who could have challenged him! He responded, “We had fun.”

 

“It’s easy to just remember the good times. It’s perhaps a survival mechanism. It was only unalloyed joy looking back from our present vantage point through the lens of wishful thinking.”

 

Peter sobered and nodded. “Yes, you’re right. There were some dark days, but I prefer to concentrate on the good times, because they were very special.”

 

Mozzie’s glasses flashed, and Peter suspected he was remembering times that were far more special than any the successful criminal and Neal had shared with him or the White Collar team!

 

Peter commented, his sentence a little muddled, “I know it’s a stupid thought, for if I wasn’t I would never have met you and Neal, but I wish I could have just known you as a human being.”

 

“Not on opposite sides of, shall we say, a fence?”

 

Peter laughed at that! “Exactly. I wish I hadn’t been Neal’s handler, I wish I’d just been his friend…and yours.”

 

“You do not need to add that, Peter. As you say, under almost any conceivable circumstances, other than the ones that actually existed, you and I would never have met.”

 

“I know you helped me because of Neal. But you still helped me, and El. And I know there was something about you and Diana, because she changed towards you.”

 

“Diana started to love a small, gentle, bald person that came into her life. It softened her attitude towards other small, gentle, bald persons.”

 

“So it was all hormones?”

 

“Who can explain a mother’s love?”

 

“Who indeed?”

 

 

To Peter’s surprise, the two of them worked together without friction in the kitchen to create a tasty dinner, and Mozzie made approving noises as he watched Peter build a cosy fire that lit the living area, and they drew chairs close and ate, and then played a game of Scrabble with a set that was completely without ‘E’s’. Mozzie heroically didn’t mention another set missing an ‘F’.

 

“Probably the little girl’s name was Emily or Erica, and she made them into necklaces,” Peter said, putting it away.

 

“I shall purchase a new set,” Mozzie said. It was a different sort of game, not trying to make every word something that Neal… _oh, I miss you, Neal!_ …would have to look up! Not having added rules and conditions to make the game harder, to test their abilities. But it was still pleasant to be here with a man who remembered.

 

“So you’re going to stay in the village for a while?”

 

“Yes. If you’d like me to – or if not, I can - ”

 

“No, Moz, I’d really like you to.”

 

‘Well, okay then. I’ll come by and bring some wine and a complete Scrabble set, and my second best chess set; I can leave that here with you.”

 

“I’ll give you a call, shall I?”

 

“I don’t use any phones, now. Just talk to people face-to-face. Too much government surveillance. The church has one, of course, for people who want help.”

 

Peter nodded. Even he was aware that whether or not Mozzie had been premature in his paranoia, the big-brother attitude of government agencies was now pervasive and ominous. Sometimes for that reason alone he was glad he didn’t have children. “Just come round Thursday, why don’t you? I’ll organise a meal.”

 

Mozzie pulled on his coat and hat and Peter walked with him to the gate, Maddie jumping around and hoping to catch wind of a rabbit snacking on the dandelions.

 

“Did you hack the Postal Service?” Peter asked, suddenly remembering. “I never did find out how you located me.”

 

“Told you, Peter,” Mozzie said, pulling his hat lower. “I try and use low-tech if I can, these days. I did not need to hack anything.”

 

“So you heard that someone that might be me visited this town?”

 

“Yeah. I knew from Diana when you left the FBI. She found out for me. So that narrowed it down.”

 

“So you waited in the town and followed me home.”

 

“No, I only took the job of spiritual advisor and pastor after I knew you were here.”

 

“You – pastor? You know the Bible? I didn’t think you’d ever read it – surely it would be a little alarming, given your profession?”

 

“I know four translations, actually. And no. I enjoyed it.”

 

“You really do have a – a - ”

 

“Yeah. My memory really is that good, and I read fast. Great help at times like these. Of course, I only needed to know the King James version when I applied. Caught up on others, and read the New Testament in the original Greek. I‘ll learn the Hebrew for the Old Testament, it’s not a language I’ve had occasion to learn before. I like to know for myself what was actually being said.”

 

Peter shook his head in the darkness. This situation was as weird as any the two had shared, way back. “I never imagined you as a priest – preacher – pastor – !”

 

“ ‘Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness,’ ”Mozzie quoted with a quick grin. “I should like to see you on Sundays, if you’d like.

________“Good-night, Peter. I enjoyed this evening.”

 

“Wait!” Peter stopped him, and Mozzie turned enquiringly. “How did you actually find my house? I don’t go to town that often, you say you didn’t follow me…?”

 

“I found this town, and I brought Maddie. She’s got an exceptional nose.  I had Maddie find you.”

 

“ _Maddie!”_

“Yes.” Mozzie’s tone was fond and just a little proud. “She has a GPS tracking chip in her collar. Seemed poetic justice, after Neal’s anklet, don’t you think?”

 

“But how did you know she’d find _me?_ Come to _me?_ Did you steal some of my clothing from way back? _”_  That certainly did make Peter feel creepy!

 

“It took me a while to train her – she doesn’t like the smell any more than Neal, and it took a lot of positive reinforcement, but eventually I got her to track the smell of devilled ham, Peter. Figured she’d only find you in all of the North West!”

 

There was a flash of white teeth, and Mozzie disappeared into the gloom, leaving Peter speechless.

 

 

 

Almost speechless. He caught his breath and called, “Do you do exorcisms?”

 “Anything you need, Suit!” Mozzie called back, amused. “That ham got too much for you, huh?”

 

Peter, chuckling, turned back to his house, lit with a warm, welcoming glow.  He looked down at Maddie, who was trotting alongside in the circle of his flashlight, all her feathers dancing. She looked up at him with loving eyes and he told her, softly, “I don’t think I’ll need one now!”

 

 

 

 

The End

 

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